The Hopkins Family: The 1st Family Vacation (Part 1

The plan is to take Wisdom and Truth on a 3 week vacation to visit friends and family. We will fly into Atlanta June 23, rent a minivan, drive about 1000 miles, and eventually end up fly home from Louisiana on July 13. You ready??? Let’s see how things are going in Georgia…

23 June – Shannon’s idea of getting to the airport 2½ hrs early was brilliant. So we arrived in plenty of time to learn that Delta would be charging $45 for our 3 bags, and that two of them were over the 50 pound limit. Unpack…repack…weigh…(repeat)…finally, all bags are checked in. But since we both have a child in our lap, we can not sit in the same section of seats (not enough oxygen masks). Thankfully, the gate agents were able to sit us across the aisle from each other. We make our way to security with 2 diaper bags, one purse, one laptop bag, one stroller, 2 adults, 2 infants. After removing all food and bottles from bags, laptops, jackets, shoes, etc…the 2½ hrs had shrunk to 50 minutes. So we grabbed some Wendy’s and hopped the train to the south terminal. Wisdom spent the first 30 minutes of the flight entertaining the other passengers, but after that, we all slept the entire flight…Thank God...’cause we were exhausted (Herm warned us that travelling with kids was “no joke!!!”).

24 June – After a great flight, we arrive at ATL about 7:15AM. We pick up our luggage without incident. The plan was to rent a car away from the airport to save ~$600. Bryan catches a cab to downtown to pick up the car, while Shannon waits at baggage claim with the Wisdom, Truth, and the luggage (including our car seats). While in line at Hertz, Bryan noticed that the minivan reservation was for Tuesday the 23rd, instead of the 24th…uh-oh, is that going to be a problem???? U betcha!!! The downtown location had no vehicles available today and the agents confirmed that no minivans would be available until after the 4th of July. In the interim, Bryan called Hertz to rent a raggedy, baby blue, Mercury Marquis from Hertz at the airport (only until a better solution could be found). Bryan retuned to airport 2 hrs later…without the rental car. It would have been another 30 minutes (or another $30 cab fare) if Kat and ‘Twan hadn’t come to the rescue with a ride back to the airport. The other saving grace was that a lady in the airport made a Starbucks run for Shannon, about one hour into the wait.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip goes much smoother.

W & T on their first swim at Miles 8th b-day.
(Can't believe we didn't take a pic with the Garrett fam)